Tag Archives: Canoelands

Canoelands VK2/SY-001 is a SOTA summit I’ve activated a couple of times, once in 2014 and earlier in 2015. It is my nearest summit though not exactly local. Turns out that while the summit is not actually in Marramarra National Park VKFF-0307, there are three regions within the activation zone that are. The map below shows the regions. The green line identifies the boundaries of the National Park (more-or-less). The non-bluish area containing the yellow VK2/SY-001 pin is the activation zone. The bluish areas are too low to be in the activation zone.

Region 1 (-33.505524,151.056584) runs along Canoelands Rd and a thin strip of land is in the park and AZ. A powerline runs almost overhead and parallel with the road making it unwise to activate.

Region 2 (-33.497161,151.067346) lies northwest of the property containing the summit. Extra high tension lines run through the northwest side of the property adjacent to the park. There are no apparent clearings and a moderately steep gradient.

Region 3 (-33.510496,151.055315) has some tracks running through it and is reasonably flat. It is away from power lines. There is access via the Colo Spur Trail off Marra Avenue.

My goal was to activate the park and the summit. Of the 3 options, region 3 seemed the most attractive so this is the one I chose. Driving to the summit I made a right turn onto Marra Avenue rather than continue on to my usual spot a couple of hundred metres from the peak. An out of site car park was found at (-33.51044, 151.05754) by turning right down a track just before the gate to the property bordering the park. From there it is a short walk through the bush to reach the operating zone. I set up on the Colo Spur Trail within 100m of a house at a T-intersection of two trails. A short tree provided support for the squid pole and the antenna wire was run up and down the track roughly NW-SE. There was a slight drizzle and a forecast for showers.

Shack and antenna sited along the Colo Spur Trail

It was 9:30am (2330z) when I made my first contact, pretty much on schedule. Before UTC rollover I made 7 CW contacts on 40m as well as 4 summit-to-summit contacts on various modes and bands. This included one with John VK6NU at Mt Dale VK6/SW-036 on 20m SSB who must have had an early start.

After rollover I worked John again and then a stream of summits. The third contact was with Andrew VK1NAM at Mt Gingera VK1/AC-002 chasing his Mountain Goat status. I’d counted Andrew’s contacts on 40m with me being the second and congratulated him in advance. Turned out that he had already achieved goat status during an unspotted activation on 2m in a contact with Andrew VK1DA. I was then able to congratulate Andrew as a real goat and then work Al VK1RX who was co-activating.

After the stream of S2S contacts, I returned to 40m CW to see if there were any remaining chasers. There were only two, and after a couple more S2S I did a run on 40m SSB notching up 17 contacts in 40 minutes. From then on I did a lot of chasing of S2Ss when not activating another band. I was staying all day on the summit so there was plenty of time to explore. I did 20m CW, 15m CW and 30m CW and worked John VK6NU on each band. 30m SSB was also worked. Attempts on 17m CW and 20m SSB met with no callers.

At around 0400z the QRM suddenly came up, a continuous electrical noise across all bands disrupting the relative calm that I’d enjoyed up ’til then. I put up with it for an hour before deciding that it would hamper chances of working summits in Europe. The noise seemed to be coming from the workshop about 50m away so I knew I had to move. I left the gear and took a walk along the trail to scope out potential new operating points. I also took the GPS with me to check the elevation on the map. I did not want to jump out of the activation zone. A location was found about 200m away and so I returned and closed down the station then moved it and set it up again. The whole process took nearly an hour and it was lucky that there were no new activations during that time.

Second location

Second location to avoid local QRM

Setting up again was done in a hurry as a new spot had come up for Al VK1RX and Andrew VK1NAM. They had walked the 7km to Mt Ginger Ale VK1/AC-007 and were doing a quick activation before dropping back to their camp site further back. My antenna was lashed up in a hurry in order to make the S2S contact. Turned out that the antenna was oriented more east-west. The noise had reduced but was not completely eliminated – I was a lot further away from the workshop but closer to the EHT power lines.

Time had marched on. It was now after 4pm or 0600z so I decided to have another go on 40m SSB to take advantage of better band conditions than in the morning stint. I was rewarded with 16 more chaser contacts. and then a spot came up for Andrew VK1DA and Adan VK1FJAW on Baldy Range VK2/ST-008. Calling was disbanded in favour of chasing and they were soon logged. After that a spot for F/HB9BIN at F/VO-033 on 30m came up and I was able to work Juerg with my 10W. He thanked me on SOTAwatch indicating he was using 12W. Many thanks to Juerg! It was my only EU S2S.

Shack at the new location

I did a second stint on 20m CW for the DX stations. There were 8 contacts – all from EU except one from Japan. A spot from Peter VK3PF on Mt Useful VK3/VT-016 ended the run. I switched to 40m and found the band alive with RTTY signals all the way from the CW-only segment up to 7090 kHz. The CQ WW RTTY DX Contest was on and there was a lot of activity as 40m had opened to EU as well. I was just able to hear Peter on 7090 under the RTTY and he commented that he had “lost the Forester”. I wasn’t sure quite what that meant but there was too much QRM to enquire further. I went on to work Tony VK3CAT on the same summit. Later on I was shocked to learn that Peter’s car had burnt out in spectacular fashion.

It was 0720z so nearing close down time. I chased Phil OK/G4OBK on 30m but could not hear him very well at all. He was QRPp and there was too much local QRM. Also Sid ZS5AYC was on 20m SSB but nothing was heard there either. A quick pack-up and by 0740z I was walking back to the car, only 5 minutes away. There was still sufficient light to make an easy exit.

Detailed map of sites activated in region 3

A great day out with a very successful activation of the Marramarra park and the Canoelands summit – and the first combined activation. The showers had stayed away and 99 contacts were logged over the 8 hours – 31 being CW. 39 summit-to-summit contacts and one park-to-park were made and the park was qualified for WWFF.
Many thanks to the chasers and other activators!

On Sat 7th March 2015 I did an all day activation at my closest summit, Canoelands VK2/SY-001 for the weekend SOTA party. This was my second activation of this summit and I operated at the same location as last time even using the same tree as a makeshift table and another trunk as a seat. Actually, one can get a bit sore sitting on a tree trunk all day so next time I’ll take a chair with some padding!

Tree used as the operating point at Canoelands

The Plan

Being a SOTA party, there were bound to be many activations throughout the day. Staying on the summit all day would allow plenty of summit-to-summit contacts to be made. In between S2S contacts there would be plenty of time to operate on as many bands and modes as possible.

The execution

Arrived at the summit well before UTC rollover and ahead of my alerted time on SOTAwatch. My first contact was a S2S with Anthony VK6MAC on Mt Dale VK6/SW-036 on 20m. Its always great to work VK6! Then I started working through all the alerted bands on CW and followed with all the bands on SSB. Any time a summit spot was received I switched to chaser mode to make the summit-to-summit contact. Before rollover, 40m was open to VK5 so band conditions were good.

Rollover

Shack at Canoelands

There was a run of 11 consecutive S2S contacts around UTC rollover, 5 on CW and 6 on SSB after which I continued on 40m CW. After another half hour there was another run of summit activations, mostly SSB including a 10m contact with Phil VK6ADF on Mt Stoney VK6/SW-061. Then I tried 20m CW but strangely couldn’t raise anyone. Then onto 6m SSB and I received a call from Compton VK2HRX but he could not hear me. I wasn’t sure whether he was in SSB or FM mode so tried both. Tried 17m CW and SSB but could not raise anyone there – maybe there were no VK6s about. Then a spot came in from Kerry VK7PAK doing a first activation of Mt Mangana VK7/SC-017. It was the middle of the day and I didn’t rate my chances as high on 40m over the 1150km path. Kerry was 4×3 but he could only get half my callsign due to local QRM on his summit. He did change frequency but that did not seem to help much. Never mind – it was a good try anyway!

Spotting and Alerting

Continuing through the bands, on 20m SSB I made one contact. The usual haunts at the top end of the band were busy with contest traffic so a clear one was found at the bottom end of the band. Through the day, mobile reception had been a bit patchy and often a data connection would be lost temporarily. For receiving summit activation alerts, the parksnpeaks Android application was being used and Rucksack Radio Tool was used for spotting. There was a stuck spot at the time in RRT that prevented audible announcements (there is a workaround for this using filtering). Both of these apps are excellent (and free) and are highly recommended. Anyway, the patchy coverage meant that spots from Nick VK3ANL and David VK3MAY were not received so they’re the ones that got away. Sorry fellas! During the day I would often tune around the 7090 “SOTA window” for any new summit activity and often find something before it was spotted. One cannot be too reliant on the technology!

30m surprise

Continued the band tour with 30m CW making a couple of contacts into VK3 and then 30m SSB. A run of 11 contacts from stations as near as 80km and as far as 1200km was very pleasing. The band was behaving like 40m at night. Then another stint on 40m CW included a chat with Deane VK4ALN who I know through packet radio. As a seasoned CW op I’m sure he found my 14wpm quite slow. It was certainly good QSO practice for me. Afterwards I went to 40m SSB for a run of 22 contacts with those I had not worked on other bands. 40m was wide open by then as it was after 0600z.

20m and DX

The long path to Europe on 20m had opened up. When I got onto 20m I found an S6 hash had started up. Determined to push on I managed to just work Herbert OE9HRV/P through the noise. i kept listening on 20m but the noise persisted. There were many spots from G summits with signals that were below the noise so I started packing up. The ends of my antenna were hanging down from the squid pole when John VK6NU spotted himself on Mt Randall VK6/SW-039. I quickly repositioned them apart still with the ends dangling on the ground. The antenna tuned and I could hear John calling, and the QRM was now much lower than before. The very sharp V shape of the antenna must have been favourable and I gave John 5×7, the strongest VK6 report of the day.

9 hours on the summit yielded 86 contacts (24 CW), 41 S2S (31 uniques) and 184 S2S pts. Thank you for all the contacts! After a quick pack up, on the drive home I was able to work 2 G summits (1 SSB, 1 CW). If only they had been S2S too! I’m now in search of a QRM-free spot at Canoelands and looking to also be simultaneously located in the Marramarra National Park for VKFF-307.